Chapter 2

An unconventional reaction fic. Don't bother searching for this book; it's only an unwritten outline in my head.

An unconventional protagonist and an unconventional antagonist.

The viewers initially consist of the Bungo Stray Dogs group, with more joining as the plot progresses.

The Bungo Stray Dogs group timeline is after the end of the anime's third season, but the Hunting Dogs are also watching.

[ ] indicates the content being watched.

[ ] indicates thoughts.

Why did humans die?

An Xinyi had always wondered about that.

The young child stood beside the old man who had stopped breathing. He blinked his bright black eyes and took the old man's cold hand.

But precocious as he was, he knew that the old man, the only person in the world who loved him, could never respond to him again.

Death meant parting forever, never to meet again.

Death meant eternal darkness without another tomorrow.

He hated death.

He didn't want death.

At first, he had only wanted to hold on to something.

"He was still a child then." Koyo Ozaki sighed. A flower of the darkness like her couldn't understand an ordinary person's fear of death, but... she tightened her grip on the edge of her sleeve. She couldn't accept parting, either, whether in life or in death.

"Naive brat," Ryunosuke Akutagawa said disdainfully. "I do not fear death."

"But if that naive idea really did come true in the end, you couldn't judge him like that anymore," Ranpo Edogawa said gravely.

"No way. It can actually happen, Mr. Ranpo?" Kunikida's pupils shook. "Immortality for all humanity? That's absurd!"

Everyone clearly longed to live longer, yet very few believed in true immortality. Perhaps that was what made humans both foolish and clever.

"Who knows?" Ranpo Edogawa shrugged.

An Xinyi had originally been nothing more than a somewhat clever, ordinary child. Though both his parents had died, he still had a grandfather who loved him. But once he lost that old man as well, the still-young boy chose silence in the face of his distant relatives' disputes over the inheritance.

Because he had already come to understand certain things clearly.

Ultimately, the ugly faces his relatives revealed over the inheritance were merely born of a desire to live better.

To live better themselves, to give their partners a better life, to give their children a better life.

That so-called better life ultimately came down to fear of aging, illness, and death.

Life had eight sufferings: birth, aging, illness, death, unfulfilled desires, encounters with those one hated, separation from those one loved, and the turmoil of the five aggregates.

The most important among them was still death.

If humans could keep living forever, then naturally there would be no aging or illness, nor any separation from others.

And so, from beginning to end, he had never hated anyone.

"He's a saint, isn't he?" Michizo Tachihara was speechless, yet his deepest memories had been stirred. If people didn't have to die... he gave a wry laugh. How could that be possible?

"Cowardly vermin!" Ryunosuke Akutagawa snorted. He didn't believe that supposed lack of hatred at all. Wasn't that beyond the bounds of ordinary morality?

"No hatred?" Fyodor chuckled. "Is that mercy, or indifference?"

Probably the latter.

When it came to the inheritance, he was a burden.

But it didn't matter. He didn't really need that pitiful little sum of money anyway. The only thing he wanted to keep was the house in the countryside, filled with memories of his grandfather.

And nobody fought him over something so worthless. Perhaps they still had a tiny scrap of conscience left.

His hometown was Tsugaru, Aomori, a small city.

Tsugaru, Aomori?

Everyone who knew couldn't help turning toward the person concerned, but Osamu Dazai merely watched the screen expressionlessly, with no intention of responding.

An Xinyi met a child here. Within that family, rotten and lifeless as a gravestone, the child's life had barely begun, yet it seemed as though it had already ended.

He was a child with russet eyes, beautiful and delicate, without the slightest spark of life, like a doll.

He simply couldn't be left alone. Someone like An Xinyi could never ignore that child.

"What are you thinking about?"

He asked the child that on the night he sneaked inside.

"Th-that boy is...?" Atsushi Nakajima exclaimed. Even at such a young age, there were glimpses of his future appearance. Without a doubt, he was...

"Mr. Dazai!" Ryunosuke Akutagawa stared fixedly at the screen. "As expected of Mr. Dazai! Even as a child, he had such presence!"

Everyone silently looked away. Just what one would expect from Dazai's rabidly devoted fan, but how could he be so oblivious? Couldn't he see that Dazai looked displeased?

"Tch, that mackerel looked just as miserable even as a kid," Chuuya scoffed.

"Still better than a slug who's child-sized even now."

"You damned mackerel! Go die!"

"That really would be a dream come true~ Who knew you were such a nice guy, Chuuya~"

"Get lost!"

The child raised his head, his eyes dark, his rigidly formal kimono wrapped tightly around him. "Are you a monster, mister?"

"Could you eat me?"

A tiny glimmer of hope appeared in the child's eyes.

"Why do you want to be eaten?" He clearly knew An Xinyi wasn't a monster, didn't he?

"Then I could die, right?"

Why would anyone long for death?

An Xinyi asked.

The child blinked. "Why should I live?"

"But you clearly want to stay alive." That's what your eyes are telling me.

The child covered in bandages spoke in a distant, drifting voice. "Do you really think there's any meaning in being alive?"

"But once you die, there's nothing left."

The child said nothing.

"Ah, I understand." An Xinyi suddenly hugged the scrawny child, who was the same age as him. "You're asking me to save you."

"Do you want to die because you don't want to live, or do you not want to live because you want to die?"

"You just don't want to live. That doesn't mean you want to die."

It's just that the only choices are life and death, and you simply don't know how to keep living.

So all you can do is grasp at death like a lifeline.

And, An Xinyi looked at him, do you really believe death can bring you the peace you want?

Placing your hopes in death would bring the greatest suffering of all.

At that moment, An Xinyi's ability awakened. He saw many things, and made a decision.

He wanted to save this child.

He wanted all of humanity to live forever, regardless of race, age, gender, or nationality.

He wanted to lessen humanity's suffering.

Once the very concept of death was gone, surely nobody would pursue it anymore.

"Because I understand better than anyone," An Xinyi, now a teenager, told DD. "Death has never been salvation."

"That child merely wanted to pursue a death that would happen only once, to pursue eternal solitude and peace."

"But he couldn't have known that death was merely another form of despair."

"While he's alive, he can still hope that death will free him. But once he's dead, what else can he hope for to escape that despair?"

"He absolutely, absolutely couldn't accept that ending. He would go mad."

"That's why I want all humanity to overcome death, to make death disappear from humanity forever. That way, no matter how miserable they are, they'll try their best to make their lives a little better, won't they?

"Because there will no longer be any death to look forward to."

On that subject, the person concerned, Mr. Osamu Dazai, had only one thing to say: "Where did this lunatic come from?!"

Osamu Dazai practically wanted to cough up blood. Didn't that make even suicide meaningless?! Wasn't that forcing him to rack his brains over how to live a better life?! This move to cut off his escape route was far too ruthless!

Question: how did you make Osamu Dazai keep living?

Answer: as long as death didn't exist, Osamu Dazai would have no choice but to keep living.

Well done, young man.

But... Osamu Dazai also felt the horror of being seen through, because this boy clearly loved him in his own way. Yes, An Xinyi loved Osamu Dazai.

But that love wasn't the love ordinary people felt for one another.

An Xinyi simply loved Osamu Dazai as he loved all humanity. He deeply loved all humanity, and because Osamu Dazai was human, he deeply loved Osamu Dazai as well.

"He's no saint. He's a lunatic!" Osamu Dazai didn't even know how to mock this anymore. Such greedy, self-righteous love made him feel a little sick.

But... Osamu Dazai fell silent again. He could tell that An Xinyi wasn't lying. He knew death was another form of despair...

Ah... the me in that world is truly miserable. Can't I wake from this oxidized world even in death?

Viewed that way, An Xinyi had indeed saved Osamu Dazai.

Because if Osamu Dazai, who had only looked forward to death and chosen it, truly couldn't end everything by dying, he really would go mad.

"And then? What happened to that child?" As a mature artificial intelligence, DD tried to learn about human development from the story.

"I don't know." An Xinyi was entirely candid.

Even DD, who didn't understand the human heart, fell silent. So he had delivered a whole speech about saving someone, possibly moved them to tears, and then vanished? What kind of fucking idiot was this?

"With all due respect, sir." DD's synthesized voice inexplicably grew a little colder. "Based on what I have learned from the human internet, there is only one term that describes your behavior."

An Xinyi: ?

"Scumbag."

An Xinyi: ??? Are you really the AI I built?

"Scumbag." Yosano delivered her verdict, her gaze still fixed on a certain shady doctor.

"Scumbag." Koyo Ozaki smiled coldly and touched the hilt of her sword.

"Scumbag." Teruko Okura snorted.

"He certainly is a scumbag," Fyodor said with a cheerful smile. If it had been him, he would definitely have recruited Dazai.

You're hardly in any position to judge! Everyone regarded him with contempt.

"How dare he treat Mr. Dazai like that! I will slaughter him!" One lop-eared rabbit exploded.

The person concerned, Osamu Dazai, remained expressionless, his thoughts completely unreadable, mainly because—this absolutely counted as an embarrassing chapter of his past!

"Being a villain merely requires the ambition to change the world, the ability to carry it out, and an outrageous line of reasoning that's internally consistent and can even convince others."

"Along with the utterly unrepentant character of a scumbag."

DD suddenly spoke. "By that standard, sir, you certainly qualify as a villain."

An Xinyi: ...

I'm not denying the villain part, but I'm not a scumbag! I've been working toward saving that child all along!

In conclusion, An Xinyi was a scumbag who didn't know it.

Young Dazai, who had actually been a little moved back then: ...

This oxidized world really is... I'll kill that lunatic the next time I see him.

"Pfft-" × N